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Imagine going to work and not knowing how much you'll be paid for your job.

Imagine being an employer and being uncertain how much to pay your employees.

If reading the aforementioned situations made you furrow your brow and purse your lips, that's the appropriate response. Both scenarios could very well be happening right now to someone, somewhere in New York state. Confusion has spiked with the myriad minimum wages in our state. The director of government affairs for the state Restaurant Association, for instance, recently told our Albany Bureau there is a learning curve about which pay rate applies where.

To lesson any confusion, it is paramount that workers and employers educate themselves on the myriad minimum wages in New York state.

Currently, New York has more than a dozen different minimum wages for various business sectors and regions and that includes the new statewide scale for minimum wage and different minimum wages for fast-food workers and tipped employees.

On Dec. 31, the first hike of the minimum wage kicked in with different wages for New York City, New York City suburbs and upstate New York. And this is on top of the series of minimum wage hikes for the fast-food industry that were approved by the state in 2015 and began on Dec. 31 of that same year.

With 14 different minimum wages, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that an employer or employee would be unaware of the proper wage. However, the state's Department of Labor website is a wealth of information including the minimum wage increase schedule and a sign-up for live webinars scheduled for Feb. 28, March 7 and March 14. The New York State Restaurant Association has also launched an online minimum wage resource center.

Public outreach will be critical to ensuring that employers and employees alike understand the new minimum wage structures. The state must shout the changes from the rooftops, using TV, radio and websites if necessary.

In fact, here's an idea: Maybe the state can find a way to point people to the Department of Labor website by using the "I Love NY" highway signs across the state. We paid about $8.1 million to print and install them, we may as well get our money's worth. The more people that are encouraged to and shown where to read up on the new minimum wage rates, the better.